Worm operated door hanger



y 1961 o. PEARSON 2,990,567

WORM OPERATED DOOR HANGER Filed June 29. 1959 by Q BY mm NW M 9m,

ATTORNE rs United States Patent F 2,990,567 WORM OPERATED DOOR HANGER Olaf Pearson, 3 Nutwold Ave., West Orange, NJ. Filed June 29, 1959, Ser. No. 823,716 8 Claims. (Cl. 16-105) This invention relates to constructions for adjustable hangers for sliding doors, and more especially a simple, rugged, and economical construction.

Light sliding doors are popular in modern houses for cupboards and cabinets, and various other locations where it is desirable to avoid having doors that swing outwardly. The sliding doors are supported from overhead tracks and they have hangers with track-engaging elements at opposite ends of the door adjustable to change the spacing of the track-engaging elements from the top of the door. This adjustment is necessary at the time of original installation to take care of tolerances in the height of the door frame and track location, and to adjust the door for parallelism with the sides of the door frame; and subsequent adjustments are made when a house settles.

It is an object of this invention to provide an improved door hanger for use with sliding doors; and the improvement consists principally in a simpler and more economical construction for a door hanger of the character indicated, and a standardized construction suitable for either right or left-hand hangers.

It is another object of the invention to provide an adjustable door hanger in which a track-engaging element is pivotally connected to a lever that moves angularly about a connection to a frame attached to the door; the angular movement providing a component of vertical movement which shifts the track-engaging element closer to, or moves it further from, the top of the door. With this invention the lever is provided with a segment of a worm wheel at its lower end, the axis of the segment being at the same location as the axis about which the lever swings to adjust the location of the track-engaging element; and a shaft with a worm wheel is carried by the hanger below the lever with the worm wheel engaging the sector of the lever. Means are provided for rotating the shaft in a bearing on the frame to turn the wormand thereby move the lever to adjust the trackengaging element upwardly or downwardly, and the quadrant holds the worm in the bearings.

Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will appear as the description proceeds.

In the drawing, forming a part hereof, in which like reference characters indicate corresponding parts in all the views;

FIGURE 1 is a side elevation showing an adjustable door hanger made in accordance with this invention;

FIGURE 2 is an end view of the adjustable. door hanger shown in FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3 is a top plan view of the adjustable door hangers shown in FIGURES 2 and 3;

FIGURE 4 is an enlarged sectional view taken on the line 4-4 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 5 is a front elevation, similar to FIGURE 1, but showing a modified form of the invention; and

FIGURE 6 is an end view of the modified form of the invention shown in FIGURE 5.

The door hanger of this invention includes a frame 10 having a flat portion 11 for contact with the door. The form of the invention shown in FIGURES l to 4 is designed for connection with the top surface of a door. There are holes 12 in the flat portion of the frame for receiving screws which extend downwardly into. the door for, securing the frame to the door.

The frame 10 also: includes a lug] 15. whichextends up- Patented July 4, 1961 wardly from one edge of the fiat portion 11; and the frame also has tabs 16 and 17 which also extend upwardly from the flat portion 11 but at an angle to the lug 15. In the preferred construction, the frame is made of malleable metal, such as soft steel, and the lug 15 and tabs 16 and 17 are made by bending parts of an original frame blank upwardly so that the lug and tabs are of one-piece construction with the rest of the frame and the entire frame can be a metal stamping and in a single stamping operation.

There is a lever 20 pivotally connected to the lug 15 by a rivet 22. This rivet is loose enough to permit the lever 20 to move angularly about the axis of the rivet; and the lever 20 extends at an acute angle to the veritcal so that swinging movement of the lever about the rivet 22 gives the upper end of the lever a component of vertical movement for adjusting the position of a track-engaging element 24.

In the illustrated construction, this track-engaging element 24 is a roller and it is rotatable about a hub 28, and preferably provided with ball bearings; and this hub 28 is permanently secured to the lever 20 by a stud 29 extending from the hub through an opening in the lever, the other end of the stud 29 being peened to provide the permanent connection of the hub to the lever 20.

The construction of the roller 24 and its connection to the lever are conventional, such rollers being well known in the art, and this roller 24 is merely representative of track-engaging elements for connection with the upper end of the lever 20. On some hangers slide blocks are used instead of rollers and the slide blocks are pivotally connected to the adjustment lever so as to remain in alignment with their supporting tracks as the lever 20 changes its angular position with adjustment of the hanger to move the track-engaging element closer to or further from the door.

In the drawing, the lug 15 is offset inwardly from the edge of the frame to which it is connected, as shown in FIGURE 2, but this olfset is not essential. The lever 20 is also offset in a direction away from the lug 15, in the construction shown. These combined offsets are selected so as to locate the track-engaging element or roller 40 over the door, indicated in dot-and-dash lines in FIGURE 2 and designated by the reference character 30. The roller 24 is preferably located in the same vertical plane with the center of gravity of the door 30.

At the lower end of the lever 20 there are teeth 33 and these teeth form a segment of a worm wheel. The axis of the segment is substantially on the axis of the rivet 22 so that the lever 20 and its worm wheel segment 35 swing about substantially the same center. In the illustrated construction, the teeth 33 are of one-piece construction with the lever 20 and they are preferably made in the same stamping operation that cuts out the lever 20 and that shapes the offset of the lever 20 and punches the holes for the rivet 22 and the stud 26.

The tabs 16 and 17' have aligned openings and a shaft 40 extends through these openings in the tabs 16 and 17. The opening through the tab 17 is shown in FIGURE 2 and the walls of this opening provide a bearing designated by the reference character 42. A part of the end of the shaft 40 is broken away in FIGURE 2 to show that the opening 42 is a slot which is open at the upper end of the tab 17. V

The bearing 42 is of suflicient axial length to provide a running clearance for a reduced diameter portion of the-shaft 40. The teeth 33 of the worm wheel segment 35 are located above the shaft 40 and prevent the shaft 40 from. being lifted out of the bearing 42. Thus, the shaft 40 cannot be removed from the assembly without firstremoving the rivet 22 to permit the worm wheel segment to be displaced from its position above the shaft 40. The construction provides an effective and economical way of holding the shaft 40 in the frame 10. It will be understood that the construction is the same at the tab 16 as illustrated for the tab 17 in FIGURE 2.

By making the shaft 40 of reduced diameter where it passes through the bearings in the tabs 16 and 17, shoulders are provided on the shaft 40 at opposite sides of each of the tabs 16 and 17. These shoulders serve as thrust bearings for preventing the shaft 40 from moving axially with respect to the tabs and the other parts of the hanger to which the tabs are connected. The inside surfaces of the openings through the tabs 16 and 17 which provide the bearing surfaces for the shaft 40 are of rather limited axial length, but there is no excessive wear because the shaft 40 is only rotated when the hanger is to be adjusted, and this is very seldom. Also, the hanger is made with the teeth 33 of sufficient depth so that a substantial amount of radial play of the shaft 40 has no effect upon the satisfactory operation of the hanger.

Along a portion of the length of the shaft 40 there are threads 47 shaped to form a worm for engagement with the worm wheel segment 35. The hanger is designed so that the bearings in the tabs 16 and 17 hold the shaft 40 with the worm engaging the teeth 33 at an intermediate depth. Thus manufacturing tolerances which raise or lower the axis of the shaft 40 with respect to the axis of the rivet 22 merely change the degree of engagement of the worm and worm wheel segment, and any play between the worm threads 47 and the worm wheel segments 33 does not affect the satisfactory operation of the hanger.

One of the advantages of this invention is that the shaft 40 is close to and parallel with the flat portion 11 of the frame, and remains in this position for all adjustments of the hanger. This permits the hanger to be more compact and of less height than hangers with adjusting screws that change their obliquity as the trackengaging element is shifted up and down.

The ends of the shaft 40 are shaped to receive a tool for imparting rotation to the shaft. In the construction illustrated, there are slots for receiving a screw driver. Other constructions for receiving a tool can be used. It is preferable to have both ends of the shaft 40 shaped to receive a tool so that the hanger can be attached to either the right or left-hand end of the door facing in either direction; and one or the other end of the shaft will be accessible for adjusting the hanger.

It is, of course, not necessary to have thrust bearings at both of the tabs 16 and 17, and it is sufficient to have only one thrust bearing on the right-hand side of one of the tabs 16 and 17 when the hanger is in use, because the weight of the door gives the shaft 40 a bias toward the right in FIGURE 1. However, the construction with thrust bearings in both directions is an advantage when initially adjusting the hanger before it is placed on a door, and especially when the hanger is one having a fairly tight rivet 22 which makes the lever 20 move on the lug 15 with considerable friction. It is one of the advantages of the construction of this invention that the hanger will operate satisfactorily in spite of wide manufacturing tolerances.

It is a feature of the invention that the worm on the shaft 40 is a single pitch worm and that the pitch is slow enough so that the gearing connection provided by the worm and worm wheel segment is irreversible. This means that force applied to the lever 20 to rotate the worm wheel segment 35 will not rotate the shaft 40, and for most applications of the hanger, no other expedient is necessary to hold the hanger in any adjusted condition. This irreversibility of the gearing connection between the shaft 40 and lever 20 may be described as self-locking. j For installations where the hanger may be subject to vibration, or for other reasons a more positive locking in adjusted position is desired, special means may be provided for resisting rotation of the shaft 40. Such a means is illustrated in FIGURE 4. At the section illustrated in FIGURE 4, the shaft 40 is made with a polygonal cross section, the specific construction illustrated being a hexagon. A spring 50 extends through openings 52 in the flat portion 11 of the frame 10, and the lower ends of the spring 50 are bent outwardly to hook under the frame and prevent upward displacement of the spring.

The intermediate center region of the spring 50 passes over the shaft 40 and contacts with a top surface of the polygonal section of the shaft. It will be evident from FIGURE 4 that the shaft 40 cannot be rotated without bending the spring 50 upwardly at its center region, and the elasticity of the spring, therefore, opposes any rotation of the shaft 40.

With this construction, the shaft 40 is rotated in steps of of angular movement, and at the end of each of these steps the center portion of the spring 50 is in contact with another side of the hexagon. When smaller steps of adjustment are desired, the polygonal section of the shaft 50 must be made with more sides. For unlimited adjustment steps, the spring 50 can be used to apply friction to a section of circular cross section but this does not provide as positive a resistance to rotation of the shaft. The construction shown in FIGURE 4 is to be considered merely representative of means for resisting rotation of the shaft.

FIGURES 5 and 6 show a modified construction for use on thin doors, or on doors which are heavy and where it is desirable to attach the hanger by screws extending into a front or back face of the door, instead of into the top surface. With this modified construction there is a frame 60 having a fiat portion 62 of substantial area for contact with a front or back face of the door, and there are openings 64 in the frame 60 for receiving screws which extend into the door.

The lug 15 extends upwardly and in substantially the same direction as the Hat portion 62 of the frame, though the lug 15 is shown with an inward offset in FIGURE 6 similar to that in the other figures, the lever 20, roller 24 and shaft 40 are of the same construction as in the embodiment of the invention shown in FIGURES l-4, except that the spring 50 and the polygon section are omitted from the construction shown in FIGURES S and 6. They can be included with this modification of FIGURES 5 and 6, if desired.

The shaft 40 is supported by tabs 16 and 17 in the same way as already described; but these tabs 16 and '17, in FIGURES 5 and 6, are at the inner ends of small horizontal flat portions 68 of the frame 60 instead of being bent upwardly at the outer edges of the horizontal flat portions of the frame as in FIGURES l and 4. The operation of this modified construction of the invention will be clearly understood from the description of the form shown in the other figures, and the only essential difference is the shape of the frame for adapting it to connection on the front or back of a door, instead of to the top of the door, as previously explained.

Where the structure shown in FIGURE 6 is to be used on thin doors, it is desirable to design the lug 15 and lever 20 so that they have less offset, and the roller 24 is therefore located in a vertical plane closer to the flat portion 62 which contacts with the face of the door.

This application is a continuation-in-part of my application, Serial 598,004, filed July 16, 1956. The preferred embodiments of this invention have been illustrated and described, but changes and modifications can be made, and some features can be used in different combinations without departing from the invention as defined in the claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A door hanger comprising a bracket, for connectng with a door, including a flat portion that lies against a surface of the door, a lug extending upward from the flat portion, a lever located above the flat portion, a shaft between the fiat portion and the lever, the shaft being located on one side of the lug, a pivot connecting the lever to the lug, with the lever on the same side of the lug as the shaft, the lever having a substantial area confronting an area of the lug in thrust bearing relation therewith, a lower peripherial edge of the lever with teeth thereon, a worm secured to the shaft between the lever and the flat portion and in mesh with the teeth of the lever, the lower peripherial edge of the lever with the teeth thereon being spaced from the lug to leave clearance for the Worm on the side toward the lug when the worm is in line with the teeth, a track-engaging element at the upper part of the lever; means at one end of the shaft for rotating the shaft, the bracket having tabs extending at an angle to the flat portion of the bracket and having hearings in which the shaft is rotatably supported, and thrust bearings for preventing axial movement of the shaft.

2. The door hanger described in claim 1, and in which the lug and the tabs are of one piece construction with the remainder of the bracket and are displaced upwardly from the flat portion of the bracket along bend linesand with the bend line for the lug substantially at right angles to those of the tabs.

3. The door hanger described in claim 2 and in which there are slots extending downwardly from the top of each of the tabs, and the shaft fits into these slots, and the walls of the slots are the bearings for the shaft, and the worm wheel quadrant is located above the shaft and holds the shaft down in said slots.

4. The door hanger described in claim 3, and in which the portion of the shaft that fits into at least one of the slots is of restricted cross section as compared with adjacent portions of the shaft, and the portion of reduced cross section has a shoulder at one side serving as a thrust bearing for preventing axial movement of the shaft in one direction.

5. The door hanger described in claim 1, and in which the shaft extends to both ends of the hanger and has means at each end for rotating the shaft with a tool whereby the same hanger is suitable for use at either the right or left-hand end of a door.

6. The door hanger described in claim 1, and in which the lever is connected to the lug by a fastening means on which the lever swings with the fastening means as an axle, and the lever is in position to hold the shaft assembled with the bracket.

'7. The door hanger described in claim 8 and in which the lever and the lug have one of them off-set from the other below said substantial area to provide a clearance for the worm from said lug.

8. An adjustable door hanger for a sliding door including a bracket having a flat portion that contacts with a surface of the door and with means by which the bracket is' connected to the door, an upwardly extending lug at the top of the bracket, a lever, a fulcrum hearing by which the lever is pivotally connected to the lug and movable angularly about a substantially horizontal pivot axis, the lever having an arcuate edge portion of substantial angular extent and with a center of curvature of the arcuate edge portion located at the fulcrum bearing, teeth along the arcuate edge portion of the lever and forming a segment of a worm wheel with the teeth directed away from the center of curvature, a cantilever support extending horizontally from one side of the lever near the upper end of the lever and in position to be spaced above the top of the door when the flat portion of said bracket is connected to the door, a track-engaging element carried by said cantilever support, a shaft carried by the bracket below said lever, a part of the length of said shaft being a worm, bearings on the bracket and in which the shaft is rotatable about its longitudinal axis and by which the shaft is connected to the bracket in a position to mesh the worm with the segment of the worm wheel, means for rotating the shaft about its longitudinal axis, the trackengaging element being pivotally connected to the lever by said cantilever support and movable angularly about the pivot axis of said lever with a component of vertical movement as the lever swings about its pivotal connection to the bracket, tabs extending upwardly at angles to the bracket and spaced apart lengthwise of the shaft and supporting the bearings in which the shaft rotates about its longitudinal axis, and a shoulder on the shaft confronting one of the tabs and providing a thrust bearing axially spaced from the worm for preventing longitudinal move. ment of the shaft and worm in one direction, the lug and tabs being of one piece construction with the bracket and formed of material displaced from the rest of the bracket, and the hearings in which the shaft rotates being the inside walls of the opening through the tabs, said openings through the tabs being slots open at their upper ends and with running clearance for the shaft, the upper ends of the slots extending upwardly and for a sufficient distance to confine the shaft transversely when the worm on the shaft is in contact with the teeth of the bottom edge of the lever so that the worm Wheel prevents lifting of the shaft out of the ends of the slots, a portion of the length of the shaft being shaped to receive a tool for rotating the shaft.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 293,598 Schmid Feb. 12, 1884 890,950 Washburn June 16, 1908 1,076,555 Dillon Oct. 21, 1913 2,775,782 Boiu Jan. 1, 1957 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE v CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent No. 2,990.56? July l 1961 I Olaf Pearson It is hereby certified that error appears in the above numbered patent requiring correction and that the said Letters Patent should read as corrected below.

Column 5, line 48, for the claim reference numeral "'8" read 'l Signed and sealed this 19th day of Decemberl96l.

' (SEAL),

Attest:

ERNEST W. sWIDER Attesting Officer I DAVID L. 'LADD' Commissioner of Patent? uscoMM-Dc 

